Indiana's Pence: Lift Regulations, Not Minimum Wage

Gov. Mike Pence wants to tell President Barack Obama that the most efficient way to create jobs and boost the economy would be to lift regulations on businesses, rather than raise the minimum wage.

"I think lifting the burden on businesses and taxes and regulations, and creating more effective career and vocational expectations, is a better pathway," the Indiana Republican told "Fox & Friends" Monday.

Pence may have the opportunity when Republican governors meet with the president Monday during the National Governors Association annual conference in Washington, D.C.

Pence said the federal government and the states "certainly have the ability" to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $10.10. Rather than mandating the increase, he said a better method would be to lift "the burden on businesses small and large."

Pence said he wanted "every Hoosier to make more than the minimum wage." The best way to accomplish that, he said, was through creating better paying jobs. In Indiana, he said they had made "career and vocational education a priority in every high school."

"The jobs that the state of Indiana was involved in bringing to our state last year have an average wage of about $21 an hour," Pence said. "The challenges our businesses face is oftentimes finding people to fill those good paying jobs."